Category: Anti-Gun Folks

Dave Hardy finds that the issue went all the way back to the 1930s, with J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover, in my opinion, was one of the greatest stains on American freedom to ever plague the American political scene. This is just more evidence.

That seems to be the advice from anti-gun groups in Connecticut:

But 88 percent of gun arrests are for criminal possession while only 12 percent are for gun traffickers, he says.

Both Pinciaro and Fair think it would be more effective for cops to focus on gun suppliers instead of just the shooters.

Fair has spent years asking police to track guns used in crimes. At meetings with police in the past she was told it was too difficult or too time intensive. Last week she heard a different answer.

These people are unbelievable fools, asking that scarce police resource be diverted from tracking criminals into tracking inanimate objects that are a symptom of a problem, not the problem itself. The problem is the criminal.

Pinciaro is pushing a new tool — microstamping — to help cops quickly track guns used in crimes. The new technology would imprint a gun’s serial number on bullets fired from it. Pinciaro says the technology would allow bullets to be traced back to the gun immediately without needing to first find the gun and then wait for the state’s forensics lab to run tests.

How does that work exactly? If all you have are empty shell casing, there’s not really any forensics that’s going to help you if you don’t already have the gun, and if you already have the gun, what do you need the forensics for? You can just look at the serial number. If the serial number is filed off, well, chances are the micro stamp is gone too.

Even if you had micro-stamped shell casings, you’d still presumably need a forensics lab to lift the serial number, and then execute a trace with ATF, which is still only going to find you the last legal owner. These people have no idea how this technology works, and they are supposed to be the ones we listen to? Screw that. These people are clueless and should be exposed as such.

Not biased. No. Not at all. Newsbusters mentioned:

Again, she was speaking to the assistant director of legislative affairs for the Brady Campaign. This is a group that opposed the historic 2008 Supreme Court decision declaring the Second Amendment an individual right. To describe one of their representatives as “not anti-gun” strains credibility.

Without a doubt. This comes to us via Cam Edwards, who no doubt will be talking about this on his show tonight. They are just nice people, you see, looking for common sense solutions to gun violence. They aren’t gun hating zealots. Heavens no.

Apparently it’s made Josh Sugarmann wet his pants. Good job guys!

Apparently Colin Goddard and his father are going to start blogging. I look forward to thoughtful and engaging debate in the comments section.

UPDATE: His Twitter page here:

CAC ’03 & VT ’08 Alum, born in Nairobi, Kenya, currently working at the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence in D.C. as an advocate for sensible gun laws.

Born in Kenya. That’s going to be a hoot for the tin foil hat crowd. Just like Obama! We haven’t seen Colin’s birth certificate either!

Bryan Miller, who never met a gun owner he didn’t hate, has this to say about Brian Aitken’s clemency:

Bryan Miller, project director for the anti-gun violence group Ceasefire NJ, said only a “tiny majority” of people actually want to loosen the state’s gun laws. He hopes others don’t see the governor’s decision on Aitken as a precendent for “a get-out-of-jail free card for breaking our gun laws.”

Interesting that he didn’t have anything bad to say about the commutation of Aitken’s sentence. That goes to show Miller isn’t blinded by ideology to the point of stupidity. He’s hoping this doesn’t have greater implications for New Jersey’s gun laws, rather than trying to fight the media tide in favor of Governor Christie’s clemency.

Joe Huffman catches a revelation from a Brady Board member that leads to a logical conclusion:

Zero is not possible as long as people and guns exist.

And even if we could turn every gun into a potted plant, and magically make every human being forget firearms technology, it’s worth noting that life was pretty short and brutal before the advent of this technology. If there’s one thing human beings are particularly good at it’s terrorizing and brutalizing each other.

There’s one thing I really don’t understand about many in the gun control movement.  I’m baffled when I read things that show just how unserious they are about pursuing policies that might address problems they perceive in society.  I’m not just talking about the organized political folks in DC whose job it is to tie every criminal use of a gun to their top policy item of the day.  I mean the few out there who still support serious gun control and who aren’t paid to promote a specific policy agenda.

I thought of this because of a foreign newspaper editorial that spends 6 of 11 paragraphs talking about a specific drive-by shooting that resulted in the death of a child.  So, considering the death of this child has caught their attention so deeply, one might assume they would be interested in suggesting specific solutions that would result in fewer child deaths and drive-bys. But no. In fact, they actually admit that their solutions won’t solve the problems illustrated by the case they highlighted.

It would also help in reducing the number of homicide cases associated with the use of licensed firearms. Of course, this measure will not work against those who seek out illegal firearms, as was the case with the Prasongsil brothers.

Also worth considering in a public debate would be the issue of whether the number of guns of a certain calibre permissible for each individual, should be limited or not.

They don’t even pretend that the last suggestion has anything to do with the case of drive-bys!

I also think back to a conversation my grandmother and I had at dinner while Sebastian and I were out in Hawaii. Here’s the cliffnotes version:

Grandmother: So is Sebastian into your little gun hobby?
Bitter: Yes. He’s a competitive shooter, he’s active in a gun club, and he even bought me a gun for Christmas one year.
Grandmother: [attempts to mask her disappointment in having a libertarian gun nut granddaughter] Oh, well that’s good that you have that in common.
Bitter: [probably enjoys breaking stereotypes a little too much] Yeah, we enjoy it quite a bit. He got me into a new shooting sport for a while, but lately things have been so busy that we haven’t had the time.
Grandmother: Well, you know, it wouldn’t be such a problem if we could just fix a few things – like closing the gun shows.
Bitter: [looks at Sebastian] Um, do they even have gun shows in Hawaii?
Sebastian: [recalling what he did know about Hawaii gun laws] I’m not sure that’s an issue out here.
Bitter: [knowing where this is going] I’m pretty sure you guys don’t have a “gun show loophole” out here in Hawaii. In fact, I’m pretty sure your laws are so strict they have put a big damper on lawful gun ownership.
Grandmother: Well, there was this shooting recently, and the gun came from a gun show.
Bitter: You’re sure about that?
Grandmother: Well, I think he may have robbed someone.
Bitter: So, wait, he bought it lawfully at a gun show or he stole it from someone who may or may not have had anything to do with a gun show?
Grandmother: I think he stole it from someone’s house.
Bitter: Wait, you want to close down gun shows and ban private sales which may not even be legal in this state – I can’t remember off the top of my head – based on a crime that appears to have nothing to do with gun shows?
Grandmother: Well, there may have been a gun show involved. But it’s a problem that needs to be solved anyway.
Bitter: [restraining all efforts to keep from beating her head against the table]
Grandmother: If we could just limit the number of guns out there, that would help.
Bitter: [morbidly curious] Just how would you do that?
Grandmother: Well, if we could make sure they are only sold to good people, like you and Sebastian.
Bitter: We’ve passed the same background checks as other people who buy guns from dealers and get concealed carry licenses.
Grandmother: Then don’t you have enough guns.
Bitter: [chuckles] Uh, no. We still have some room to fill in the safe.
Grandmother: [horrified at the notion we’d like to own more guns]

Her solution to a crime that bothered her isn’t to address the criminal who was out on the streets, how he was able to continue his crime spree and steal a gun, or even how to address the details of the killing (which she didn’t explain, and I knew better than to ask). She just parroted the nearest talking point she could find.

I am interested in solving problems. If there’s a crime that bothers me, I want to address the roots of the problem so we don’t have to deal with that problem again, or at least minimize the number of instances in which we have to deal with it. It’s such a waste of energy and, potentially, political capital to focus on non-solutions to specific problems. I can’t comprehend the people who go on believing that ignoring the fundamental problems is the best way to truly reduce violence. How many rap sheets have we posted the show the problem in Philly isn’t about guns, it’s about why these scum of the earth are even walking the streets when they have 10, 15, and 20 page criminal records? At least the professional gun controllers are simply pushing a political agenda. It’s the non-professional ones that really baffle me.